The athenaOne Workflow Acceptance Checklist

These are the questions a practice manager, COO or patient-access leader should be able to answer “yes” to before accepting any automated workflow on athenaOne, from Pretty Good AI or anyone else. Use it in scoping, at go-live sign-off, and when reading a vendor’s customer story: a story that cannot answer these is not proof.

1. Completed state

• The workflow has a named end state, and it is a change in athenaOne, not a message to staff. Web scheduling: a real appointment on the provider schedule with the chart, demographics and intake attached. Referral: a booked first visit with the referral record’s status updated.
• The end state is observable in athenaOne without logging in to any other system.
• Partial completion states are defined (for example “booked, intake pending”) and visible.

2. Staff touch

• It is written down which steps run with zero staff touch and which require a person.
• The exceptions that come back to staff are enumerated: uncertain chart match, request outside booking rules, clinical question, missing referral information the referring office does not return.
• Exceptions arrive as athenaOne work items, not as a separate inbox staff must remember to check.
• Clinical decisions stay with the care team. The workflow never decides appropriateness of care.

3. Failure recovery

• If the patient abandons mid-flow, nothing half-written is left in athenaOne, or the partial record is clearly flagged.
• If athenaOne is unavailable, the workflow tells the patient what to do next and staff can see what was not completed.
• Duplicate patient creation is prevented or surfaced for review.
• A referral that stalls (no response from the patient or the referring office) becomes visible after a defined period rather than disappearing.

4. Record and audit trace

• Every write to athenaOne is attributable: which workflow, when, from which input (web session, fax, form).
• The source document (fax, form submission) is attached to the referral record.
• Practice staff can see the trail inside athenaOne; no separate portal is required to reconstruct what happened.
• The vendor works under a BAA, and security attestations are available on request. Ours are described on the HIPAA compliance page.

5. Pricing scope

• The first workflow, how success is measured and the price for continued use are agreed before launch. Our terms: We agree on the first workflow, how success will be measured, and the pricing for continued use before launch. There are no setup fees. Your first 30 days live are free. The clock starts when your first agreed workflow goes live in your practice, whether that is voice, web scheduling, referrals or another workflow. When the free 30 days end, service continues automatically, month to month, at the pricing in your order form. New workflows are priced when activated.
• It is clear which workflows are in scope for that price and that new workflows are priced when activated.
• In short: No setup fees. First 30 days live free. Month to month after. No annual lock-in.
• If payments are in scope, it is clear where they are collected and whose rules they follow. Ours: We collect patient payments on the Pretty Good AI web scheduler, and we send secure payment links through your practice's existing payment portal wherever that is the rail your billing team wants. Balances, documented payment plans and follow-up run to your billing team's rules.
• Nothing about cancellation deadlines, invoice timing, rates or minimum commitments has been promised verbally that is not in the order form.

6. First workflow and the 30-day start

• Go-live is planned within a stated window (ours is typically 3 to 6 weeks) and depends on the practice’s athenaOne configuration, not on changing it.
• The free period starts when the agreed first workflow is live in the practice, and the practice knows the date it began.
• The success measure agreed before launch is one the practice can pull from athenaOne itself: for example, share of appointments booked online, or referrals received to first completed visit.
• Booked versus attended, and after-hours share versus incremental volume, are distinguished in whatever is measured.
• Who at the practice owns the go/no-go decision at the end of the free period is named.